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Original poster

Would you go back in time if you could? When would you go to?

65 replies

DitheringDillie · 03/02/2021 16:49

I have an almost overwhelming longing for Times Past! I'd go to the early 2000's or the 90's. And would really try to make it last. Savour it all.

Youth definitely had some very difficult bits for me - but overall I just had such a sense of confidence about me.

Would you journey back in time? To what point, and why?

OP posts:
SisterAgatha · 03/02/2021 17:14
  1. But only if I could know then what I know now. I’d only be 11 but I’d do so much differently!!!
SisterAgatha · 03/02/2021 17:15

Oh and why is just because the summer of 1992 had the best music, the best weather, the best smell, and I was really happy then. If I could go back I’d have a good word with my teenage self!!!

ssd · 03/02/2021 17:15

To 1975. To be young and at home with mum and dad. Just a day would do me.

Greenevalley · 03/02/2021 17:19

I would like to go back as a spectator for a short time. But I value modern medicine too much to stay there.

Late victorian period fascinates me.

Thomasina79 · 03/02/2021 17:23

I love the Edwardian period, even though I realise for many people life was hard.

Apart from that I would go back to 1975 to tell my young self not to be so silly, and not to rush into anything.

Chasingsquirrels · 03/02/2021 17:26

2014 and have late-DH get 6-monthly health checkups which would hopefully discover his cancer while it was still treatable.

mrbensbaker · 03/02/2021 17:28

October 2019.

iklboo · 03/02/2021 17:31

The 1920s as a Bright Young Thing flapper girl or 1960s San Francisco

Missreginafalange · 03/02/2021 17:31

2012, the day my 17 year old step-brother went to a party and never came home.

I would lock him in the house so he couldn't have gone and got killed.

Original poster
DitheringDillie · 03/02/2021 17:32

@Greenevalley

I would like to go back as a spectator for a short time. But I value modern medicine too much to stay there. Late victorian period fascinates me.
Yeah I did realise after I posted that "going back in time" is rather vague and others might choose to go back beyond their own experience!

I totally hear you when you say it would be interesting to go back much further, but only as a visitor.

OP posts:
FilthyforFirth · 03/02/2021 17:40

Yes back to 2007. I sacked off my now husband for a loser who cheated on me and ruined most of my 20s. My mental health was so shit and I attempted suicide several times.

Had I stuck with DH (we finally got together in 2013) my 20s would have been so much more fun/carefree.

Also we would have had more responsibility free time as by the time we got together it was time for houses marriage and babies.

I regret that time without him so much and think of it often.

MrsMoastyToasty · 03/02/2021 17:42

During my own lifetime I would go back to the mid 80's.
If I were to go to another era I would go back to the late Victorian times. I would be able to hide my bum under a bustle.

Sacreblue · 03/02/2021 18:23

Gosh 1975 is popular!

Like Agatha it would really only be worthwhile going back in time with the knowledge/wisdom/experience of today and possibly a small army so there are moments in my life that I would like to intervene on rather than just visit.

One example is a teenager I met Newcastle direction in the ‘90’s, they were with a much older man who joked about their parents being dead Hmm

It wasn’t the first time I had met them, I think that was as young children on tent/caravanning holiday, nor the last time, but I don’t think they realise how much I remember and how much I wished then & now that I’d had the power to intervene.

But if wishes were horses and all that.

So 1975 might be as good a year as any to head back to 🕺🏻

year5teacher · 03/02/2021 18:25

Yep. I would go back to 2011 - sixth form. I was just starting to go out to house parties, first proper boyfriend, big group of friends.. loved my school, my teachers. Lived at home. Life was so much more simple then, yet felt so complicated.

year5teacher · 03/02/2021 18:26

In another time though, I’d like to be a teenager in the 90s. Sadly I was born in 1994 Hmm

agapanthus1979 · 03/02/2021 18:35

It's a bit of a cliche, but the 1920s. BUT (and this goes for any time from the past) I would want to be very rich. I'm all about the country house weekend parties, jewelled headbands, fun cocktails. I don't want to be doing the family's washing in my slum....

Jumpintothefire · 03/02/2021 18:45

I would go back to late 80s /early 90s and instead of spending my hard earned cash on going out and private landlords , I would have found out about mortgages and savings . I would have bought up the now highly desirable but then slum landlord flats in the West End of Glasgow and made a big profit from them for my children to have security . I also would have kept away from cock lodging waster men . I would appreciate that I wasnt actually stupid but quite bright .

StressedTired · 03/02/2021 18:47

Do you mean to go back and live it again? If only want to do this if I knew I was doing it, if you see what I mean. So like I could go back to teenage years and worry less about stupid stuff, or go back to childhood and feel more confident.
Aside from that, I would love to go back in time, to all times, just to see with my own eyes what life was like then. I've always wished this! Not necessarily to live it because I'm sure life was awful a lot of the time, but just to wander around and look at stuff and meet people.

VestaTilley · 03/02/2021 19:00

The early 1990s, to tell myself to work far, far harder at school and university, and to work harder at staying friends with a girl I drifted away from but who I’ve missed ever since. We were 9.

I’d love to see my grandparents again. Even if it was just once more.

Will0wtree · 03/02/2021 19:27

On the one hand I'd like to go back and turn down the first date with my exH who was an utter dick and total waste of space (but I was too young to realise it). But then I'd never have had my DC who is UTTERLY wonderful and the best thing in my life. Sometimes we have to live through the crap to get the good stuff I think.

As a time period the late 1980s/early 1990s seemed very positive. People seemed to think so much was possible back then. Now we seem much more cynical (realistic).

BonnieDundee · 03/02/2021 19:32

1981 the music was fantastic.and there are family members I would love to see again Sad

OrangeBananaFish · 03/02/2021 19:42

My lifetime would be 1996. Best. Summer. Ever. Also would make different life choices and travel rather than Uni.

In general. I'd also like to be an observer in pretty much every time period. I grew up in York so I would like to walk around the city in different eras.

Frozenintime · 03/02/2021 19:44

Anytime I could be with my dad again

DoreenWinkings · 03/02/2021 19:44

In my lifetime the mid 90's. The music, the clothes, the feelin that things were getting better and would keep getting better. It seems a lifetime ago now.

Historical times? I'd very much enjoy going back to see Henry VIII and imparting full scientific knowledge of just who in the equation provides the necessary ingredients for a boy child... well until I got hung for being a witch anyway Grin

Barbadosgirl · 03/02/2021 19:46
  1. Hug my grandma. Tell her she will always be my original BFF. Have a simple day at home with my family. Go see my best friend’s sister and make sure she knows that when she is having a really bad day in 2006 she must call one of us and not take that overdose. Have a good look round my school and friends and soak in all that youth and hope. Little whisper in my 16 yo self’s ear to tell her things are going to get really serious and tough for a while but she shouldn’t internalise and punish herself but ask for some help with it all.